Newport, Rhode Island Writing & Yoga 2015 Retreat – April 4, 2015

After Energizing Yoga with Elissa, Stephen introduced “Theater of the Impossible.” In Stephen’s “Theater of the Impossible” workshop, we talked about the most satisfying components of watching a play: seeing the impossible unfold before us or watch as it is staged. Instead of thinking of a script as a blueprint, Stephen encouraged us to consider the script “recipe” a challenge and to think outside of it.

After Stephen’s class, Kathleen reviewed the manuscript revisions during a second session of “Reviewing Your Manuscript for Publication” and read from her own book: With Robert Lowell and His Circle. You can watch Kathleen read here:

The writers took a much deserved break after Kathleen’s class and explored historic Newport during the afternoon. Workshops resumed with Stephen’s “Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories.” We discussed the traditional Aristotelian story structure. Then we began breaking the rules with new ways of storytelling through interpolation (like Charles Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0), tessellation (like Carson Kreitzer’s Flesh and the Desert) and the looped stack narrative (likeJason Grote’s 1001).

Norma finished out the day of workshops with a second session of “Your Voice: Bringing your Page to Performance.” We shared our work salon style in the living room. Both Claire Ince’s performance piece and Saundra Norton’s can be heard below.

At the end of the night, we made an impromptu group performance in response to“Too Many Cooks”—a crazy parody of sitcom opening credits.